Hello from a new player. » Forum Post by PeskyFly

I was exactly like peskyfly when I was waiting for my box to arrive. At the first few games it might seem boring. But after a while, I can garrentee that you'll be addicted. I once went 5 hours straight playing the game and didn't even notice. And there was still temptation on the "a few more turns wouldn't hurt".

That dialog box is evil I tells ya. EVIL!

-Scot

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i think you're going to find you're starved for cash, no matter your diplomacy value

How? My idea is to make Earth( and maybe one more good PQ planet) purely tax-economic, extend trade routes to friendly races and militarily powerful races, cover those trade routes with economy starbases, sell those SBs to my trade partner and keep doing that over and over, while researching, and selling freighters/corvettes every so often until something happens that I have to lay off on the routine and actually take action.

If no one ever attacks me or becomes a problem in any way(like becoming too powerful, too hostile, too influential), then I'll only begin splurging money on advanced war ships if one fine day I find myself economically and technologically strong enough and feel like conquering a weaker neighbor. Otherwise, I'll only keep as much military as needed to not fall behind the mainstream in military ratings. Of course, I'll flip planets rather than capture them if I really need more land, and do the same for already-occupied asteroids.

BTW, one more question: If you set your sliders high on military production, but are not building anything, I know the money just comes back to your treasury, but what happens to asteroid bonuses? Do they just get converted into BC and actually give you a revenue?
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As for base sizes, the smallest weapon is HD Spike Driver 3. However, the true 'smallest' weapon depends on how much space in the hull carrying it and the weapon's size multiplier. On a fully-miniaturized huge hull capital ship, the smallest weapon will be a Quantum Torpedo 3 at 17 spaces, while on that same hull, an HD Spike Driver 3 will take up 21 spaces.

Missiles have a multiplier of 2%, while beams and guns have multipliers of 4%, and thus, on a smaller hull, mass/beam weapons will be smaller, while on a larger hull, missiles will be smaller. Missiles will become smaller and smaller in comparison to other weaponry as miniaturization technology gets more and more advanced.

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the smallest weapon will be a Quantum Torpedo 3 at 17 spaces, while on that same hull, an HD Spike Driver 3 will take up 21 spaces.

pretty sure it doesn't actually work that way - now, anymore, as a result of rounding, something - but i'm 99.99% sure it doesn't work out that way. as i said i'm not a number cruncher; i'd double check real quick, but i'm at work - perhaps when i get home.

one thing to keep in mind is that the sizemod cost is calculated on the base hull size; extra room from miniaturization isn't factored into that calculation.

How? My idea is to make Earth( and maybe one more good PQ planet) purely tax-economic, extend trade routes...

yes, and it won't be enough. my typical experience is that planets will run in the red for 1-2 years after being founded. if you avoid building on them for a while, or take bonuses to boost your pop growth, this can be ameliorated somewhat. if you try to gain as much territory as you can during the initial rush, it'll be a long time before your economy develops to the point that you can actually do anything. if you're conservative during the rush, you'll develop more quickly but fall behind in the long run if you don't turn to conquest.

i've seen single planets with incomes well into the thousands of BSs a month, but for the kind of spending you're imaging, you'll need an income surpluss in the tens of thousands of BCs per month. you can't get that from 1 or 2 econ worlds.

when i play a longer game, after i've finished the tech tree and fortified my military, i often switch most of my planets to pure econ (leaving only a couple planets to effectively produce ships). i'll usually leave a shipyard on my other planets and leave them to slowly produce 'structors.

I was exactly like peskyfly when I was waiting for my box to arrive. At the first few games it might seem boring. But after a while, I can garrentee that you'll be addicted.

yes i remember the same thing in my own way - and i'm certainly not trying to deter you from attempting to implement your strategy. please consider my responses discussion only - i'd be the last person to say that there's a right way and a wrong way to play this game. merely i'm pointing things out you may have not thought about.

do you think you'll post observations, or even an AAR, about your first game? i think that'd be an interesting read for me (sort of re-experience my early days vicariously).

edit: here are some in-game numbers to crunch (weapon: size on a huge hull)

doom ray: 16
BHE: 14
BHG: 12

distruptor 3: 11
positronic torp 2: 14
neutrino bullets: 12

quantum torp 3: 11
HD spike driver 4: 10
HD spike driver 3: 9

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the smallest weapon will be a Quantum Torpedo 3 at 17 spaces, while on that same hull, an HD Spike Driver 3 will take up 21 spaces.

pretty sure it doesn't actually work that way - now, anymore, as a result of rounding, something - but i'm 99.99% sure it doesn't work out that way. as i said i'm not a number cruncher; i'd double check real quick, but i'm at work - perhaps when i get home.

one thing to keep in mind is that the sizemod cost is calculated on the base hull size; extra room from miniaturization isn't factored into that calculation.

How? My idea is to make Earth( and maybe one more good PQ planet) purely tax-economic, extend trade routes...

yes, and it won't be enough. my typical experience is that planets will run in the red for 1-2 years after being founded. if you avoid building on them for a while, or take bonuses to boost your pop growth, this can be ameliorated somewhat. if you try to gain as much territory as you can during the initial rush, it'll be a long time before your economy develops to the point that you can actually do anything. if you're conservative during the rush, you'll develop more quickly but fall behind in the long run if you don't turn to conquest.

i've seen single planets with incomes well into the thousands of BSs a month, but for the kind of spending you're imaging, you'll need an income surpluss in the tens of thousands of BCs per month. you can't get that from 1 or 2 econ worlds.

when i play a longer game, after i've finished the tech tree and fortified my military, i often switch most of my planets to pure econ (leaving only a couple planets to effectively produce ships). i'll usually leave a shipyard on my other planets and leave them to slowly produce 'structors.

I was exactly like peskyfly when I was waiting for my box to arrive. At the first few games it might seem boring. But after a while, I can garrentee that you'll be addicted.

yes i remember the same thing in my own way - and i'm certainly not trying to deter you from attempting to implement your strategy. please consider my responses discussion only - i'd be the last person to say that there's a right way and a wrong way to play this game. merely i'm pointing things out you may have not thought about.

do you think you'll post observations, or even an AAR, about your first game? i think that'd be an interesting read for me (sort of re-experience my early days vicariously).

edit: here are some in-game numbers to crunch (weapon: size on a huge hull)

doom ray: 16
BHE: 14
BHG: 12

distruptor 3: 11
positronic torp 2: 14
neutrino bullets: 12

quantum torp 3: 11
HD spike driver 4: 10
HD spike driver 3: 9

Well, the colony rush will be short with so few colonies. If I'll be short on cash, so will everyone else be. It'll just be the same, but with longer waiting periods between the building of each NLC. If they do prove to be the credit-thirsty labs that I hear they'll be, I'll build a few NLCs and otherwise use more frugal Invention Matrices or Discovery Spheres, although Discovery Spheres really don't look much better than NLCs considering cost-effectiveness.

As for the miniaturization, you were right! Now I'll be redesigning my ships to be more powerful(and more expensive

) than ever! Here's what the wiki said in the very last paragraph of the Miniaturization article:

"The bug was resolved by tying the variable portion of component size to the base size of the hull without any miniaturization. This means that a Graviton Driver is always size 9 on a tiny hull and 12 on a huge hull, regardless of miniaturization."

Yes, I will be posting a simple(but long) AAR with no story - I think those things have infested the AAR section and are a waste of time, since I read the AAR section only to see how someone played the way they did.

Unfortunately, I won't be able to play at all until the end of September(around 27th) because of exams falling in the way.

The box will just be lying around until then.

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Welcome Pesky Fly. I read this in interest, One thing to remember is the AI gets a huge advantage economically and technically on higher levels. One thing I try to build as quick as possible is the econ capital.

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As for the miniaturization, you were right!

hehe well i've been playing since the first month DL came out, and modding for almost that whole time (thus no MV scores). if/when you get into modding game stats, you tend to learn the way they work in a very intuitive way. i have trouble remembering hard numbers because i've changed most of them at one time or another.

but i think the only weapon i've ever modded was the subspace blaster, to make it more than useless and lame. i remembered that HDSD3s are the smallest because of a game i played with the Arean super-warrior ability and extra bonuses to weapons, luck and miniaturization. luck improves the average attack value per weapon, so i capitalized on it by putting as many weapons on as i could, and i was kind of disappointed when i realized the smallest weapon was the HDMD3 - because i like the graphics for neutrino bullets more.

Yes, I will be posting a simple(but long) AAR with no story - I think those things have infested the AAR section and are a waste of time

well, that's kind of harsh. they might be a waste of time for you, but i know people very much enjoy writing them and others enjoy reading them. i don't always enjoy reading them myself, but this game attracts very diverse fans and the forums reflect that.

Unfortunately, I won't be able to play at all until the end of September(around 27th) because of exams falling in the way. The box will just be lying around until then.

that's really unfortunate! and that gives you only a month before the next expansion comes out. do you think you'll buy Twilight early on? i haven't even been interested in playing DA much since they announced it.

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I zoned out around response #21 and skipped to the bottom here. To answer your question about buying and selling ships for profit, it can be done. In fact, I just finished an AAR with the Terrans (with no extra storyline, right up your alley!) at level Painful about how you can do just that. I actually built zero warships over the course of the entire game, simply bought, sold, and/or gifted ships around the universe. In fact, it was the highest military score I have ever achieved, not sure if thats a good thing or not. Without super-diplomat ability it would be a little more annoying. To answer the question about ships that are outside life support zone, they simply have to make a straight line to the nearest area ( which is designated in-game by a little white line) where they can be supported. Building the ships as a neutral and then selling them, I'm not sure if thats worth your time. One, you are wasting production that could be more profitable in other ways, like building a bank or something. Two, you're selling a ship you wasted time building to an opponent for a marginal profit at best. Of course this is all relative. I did see where you enjoy more complicated strategies, and far be it from me to ruin your fun. After all I just completed a game with no warships and building about 90% stock markets. In retrospect, very boring, but it was something new

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I'll probably be getting Twilight sometime between November and next February. The box art of Twilight gives a hint that maybe no one has ever found Arnoria because it was blown up by a Terror Star. I'd mainly buy Twilight for the Terror Stars, and the Legacy of the Telenanth backstory campaign. The new ship components offer little to give to the game and the unique race-based tech trees just make the player choose which race they want to be.

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I zoned out around response #21 and skipped to the bottom here. To answer your question about buying and selling ships for profit, it can be done. In fact, I just finished an AAR with the Terrans (with no extra storyline, right up your alley!) at level Painful about how you can do just that. I actually built zero warships over the course of the entire game, simply bought, sold, and/or gifted ships around the universe. In fact, it was the highest military score I have ever achieved, not sure if thats a good thing or not. Without super-diplomat ability it would be a little more annoying. To answer the question about ships that are outside life support zone, they simply have to make a straight line to the nearest area ( which is designated in-game by a little white line) where they can be supported. Building the ships as a neutral and then selling them, I'm not sure if thats worth your time. One, you are wasting production that could be more profitable in other ways, like building a bank or something. Two, you're selling a ship you wasted time building to an opponent for a marginal profit at best. Of course this is all relative. I did see where you enjoy more complicated strategies, and far be it from me to ruin your fun. After all I just completed a game with no warships and building about 90% stock markets. In retrospect, very boring, but it was something new

Yeah, I read that AAR. Apparently, Neutral races get a discount on straight away 'buying' ships rather than building them, so I won't be losing production points by buying and selling ships. I'll also do something like what you did: Ally with a few races, buy ships cheap from one ally, sell them expensive to another ally and pocket the profit.

See this thread, from Reply # 24 and after. I may sell those economic SBs to my trade partner in exchange for ships, and then sell those ships for a considerable profit to other races(preferably allies) so as to offset the cost of the econ SBs. I'm willing to micromanage and maintain accounts to every BC for my over-complicated buying/selling/building/trading strategies.

Except, this capitalism won't be in order for a diplomatic victory like yours. It will be to fuel my expensive Neutrality Learning Centers and help me meet, as Dystopic said, my cash starvation.

This does lead me to considering setting planets and stars on Uncommon and use Tight Cluster as to largely eliminate the colony rush, but still get about one more planet other than Earth and Mars, and then let the game progress slowly from there.

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My idea is to make Earth( and maybe one more good PQ planet) purely tax-economic, extend trade routes to friendly races and militarily powerful races, cover those trade routes with economy starbases, sell those SBs to my trade partner and keep doing that over and over, while researching, and selling freighters/corvettes every so often until something happens that I have to lay off on the routine and actually take action

Big mistake pesky. Don't sell your starbases. Too valuable. And never give your opponent military ships unless its a situation where you must.
i.e. they are getting clobbered by another race and you are at war with that race too or you are planning to wage war or they threaten trade or your SBs or they are too powerful and you don't want them to take more planets.

You want good relations? Gift them a couple BCs here and there. Freighters are much more useful then just gifts. In fact, extablishing a trade route gives you a MUCH MUCH better relations bonus then simply giving them a freighter. And it pays too.

I'll also do something like what you did: Ally with a few races, buy ships cheap from one ally, sell them expensive to another ally and pocket the profit

ummm... no, you can't do that. In this scenario you failed to take into account that:
1) A ship is sold and bought for a certain price which remains the same for all races. Your diplomacy ability will boost this for you(especially that bradley fellow with his super diplomats).

2) that the race which sells you a ship for a certain price might be approached by the potential buyer race that you wanted to sell that ship to.

3) I'm pretty sure the AI is a mean bargainer. Sadly, it is smart enough to know how much money it needs and wont spend that money and it will make you sell that ship cheaply. Its kinda like "take it or leave it".

Technology is a good way to make money and broker a deal. If x race is developing a weapon class that you don't have defences on i.e. your using Mass drivers and point defences. And that race is developing lasers with armor. Now x race is a threat to you because of whatever reason. And for another reason you cant shift your ships from point defence to sheilds. What do you do?

On challenging this works: If x race is devoleping lasers II then give them stingers III(if you have it) in exchange for something else valuable.
This way they have a weapon class you have defences on(even though more powerful). The AI is stupid enough to upgrade all of its ships and change weapon class. Draining money from its economy. NOTE: this works on challenging only

Another bug in the game that works:
Try selecting an AI's planet, and then press domestic policy. Now just move one of the sliders. The AI's planet in the context area will tell you how long until a ship is built on that planet. It dosnt say which ship. Just 6 weeks or 10 weeks or something. It helps in bringing transports in by knowing when the planet will have a new ship. It always works for me. And it never registers as a cheat.

-Scot

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dammit, i just had a nice detailed reply ready and MSIE stopped responding on me.

MicroSoft: cutting edge researchers in artificial stupidity.

anyway it went something like this.

hi scot,

check out the forum he linked. i managed to get trade up to almost 66K.

pesky,

if you want to rely on trade to help pay for research, to compensate for the 'crash' when the trade cycle resumes, i suggest the following.

when your first frieghter arrives, check to see how many turns it has it its cycle (mine was 755). then divide that number by the total number of frieghters you'll have (i had 12, but with neutral terrans you'll only have 11 unless you buy an extra, but i think the 3 points are better spent elsewhere). divide the total turns by the total number (for me that would have been 755/12 = 62.916 or ~63. then make sure each subsequent frieght takes that many turns before it arrives.

yes, it'll take them longer to mature, but i really do encourage you to establish a much short trade line. mind spanned the entire diagonal of a gigantic map; i'd recommend 3-6 sectors. you won't make as much in the end, but it'll take a really long time to develop, and i don't know that there's an absolute cap on how much they can grow. just remember, most of the income comes from having the entire route saturated with SBs, so the plan is contingent on being able to do that.

so for shorter lengths, what i'd do is approximate a decimal remainder with a small fraction: 1/4, 1/3, or 1/2 (or 2/3 or 3/4). then i'd round down, but every 4th, 3rd to 2nd frieghter i'd round up (or round up, and every 3rd or 4th frighter round down, in the case of 2/3 or 3/4). if i my fraction were 6.37, i'd round to 6 and 1/3, or make the frighters arrive in 6, 6 and then 7 turns.

i think that'll be the best way to stabilize your trade income, which is important if you plan to rely on it to fund research and industry - also another reason for a shorter route, since you want to use this to fund something before you complete the tech tree and are hyper advanced.

also, there's no accounting for what the AI will do in a real game with many planets, and in that sense i disagree with you about the importance of the galactic privateer - it will ensure that you don't lose out on the maturity your frighters gain over time; SBs can always be rebuilt, but losing that slow growth gain, especially if you start early, could really hurt.

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Big mistake pesky. Don't sell your starbases. Too valuable. And never give your opponent military ships unless its a situation where you must.

What's wrong with selling them unarmed economic starbases when I still get the same benefit?

And since when did selling freighters become selling warships? What if your trade routes are maxed out and you CAN'T use those freighters to make trade routes? BTW, I'm not gifting, I'm selling. And as far as selling warships go, selling seriously lousy obsolete core ships that I wouldn't touch myself won't be boosting their military much, and will make them think I'm using different weapons. If they are desperately fighting a losing war against someone, I might be able to get a better deal on that junk.

And if this doesn't work, how does tech whoring work?

1) A ship is sold and bought for a certain price which remains the same for all races. Your diplomacy ability will boost this for you(especially that bradley fellow with his super diplomats).

2) that the race which sells you a ship for a certain price might be approached by the potential buyer race that you wanted to sell that ship to.

3) I'm pretty sure the AI is a mean bargainer. Sadly, it is smart enough to know how much money it needs and wont spend that money and it will make you sell that ship cheaply. Its kinda like "take it or leave it".

(1) That sounds like an advantage. If my Super Diplomacy boosts that price, I'll be getting more profit on each sale.

(2) Do you often see AI races using ships built by other AI races?

(3) For someone who has actually played the game, how come you aren't totally sure whether the AI is a hard bargainer or not? I'll be using alliances, trade route bonuses, Super Diplomat, and every diplomacy tech I can get(including Balanced Vision). That should soften them up, at least on Challenging.

Oh, and thanks for the bug. It could prove to be very useful against the Dread Lords later on when I'm playing with Mega Events.

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dammit, i just had a nice detailed reply ready and MSIE stopped responding on me.

MicroSoft: cutting edge researchers in artificial stupidity.

anyway it went something like this.

hi scot,

check out the forum he linked. i managed to get trade up to almost 66K.

pesky,

if you want to rely on trade to help pay for research, to compensate for the 'crash' when the trade cycle resumes, i suggest the following.

when your first frieghter arrives, check to see how many turns it has it its cycle (mine was 755). then divide that number by the total number of frieghters you'll have (i had 12, but with neutral terrans you'll only have 11 unless you buy an extra, but i think the 3 points are better spent elsewhere). divide the total turns by the total number (for me that would have been 755/12 = 62.916 or ~63. then make sure each subsequent frieght takes that many turns before it arrives.

yes, it'll take them longer to mature, but i really do encourage you to establish a much short trade line. mind spanned the entire diagonal of a gigantic map; i'd recommend 3-6 sectors. you won't make as much in the end, but it'll take a really long time to develop, and i don't know that there's an absolute cap on how much they can grow. just remember, most of the income comes from having the entire route saturated with SBs, so the plan is contingent on being able to do that.

so for shorter lengths, what i'd do is approximate a decimal remainder with a small fraction: 1/4, 1/3, or 1/2 (or 2/3 or 3/4). then i'd round down, but every 4th, 3rd to 2nd frieghter i'd round up (or round up, and every 3rd or 4th frighter round down, in the case of 2/3 or 3/4). if i my fraction were 6.37, i'd round to 6 and 1/3, or make the frighters arrive in 6, 6 and then 7 turns.

i think that'll be the best way to stabilize your trade income, which is important if you plan to rely on it to fund research and industry - also another reason for a shorter route, since you want to use this to fund something before you complete the tech tree and are hyper advanced.

also, there's no accounting for what the AI will do in a real game with many planets, and in that sense i disagree with you about the importance of the galactic privateer - it will ensure that you don't lose out on the maturity your frighters gain over time; SBs can always be rebuilt, but losing that slow growth gain, especially if you start early, could really hurt.

Don't use Internet Explorer. Go for Firefox, which is what I use, or otherwise, you can even try out Apple's Safari web browser(I have it, but rarely use it).

I plan on building a trade 'array' to my direct neighbors so as to keep it nice and short. The trade routes will either be with:

1. Korx - My first choice.

or

2. Arceans

or

3. Altarians

or

4. Krynn

or

5. Torians

or

6. Iconians

or

7. Anyone else( if the above choices are not my direct neighbors )

I'll have Mega Events turned off, so I won't be getting serious 'poof-goes-trade' events like rogue Peacekeepers.

How is a game with (very)few planets not a 'real' game? Are you talking Metaverse? Or are you talking about a game with Mega Events turned on? The only reason I see to build GP is if my merchants have gained lots of experience and are under threat.

What exactly is that 3 points you need for an extra trade ship? Is it 3 bc or 3 MP or something else? If it is that cheap, then there really would be no harm in buying an extra seeing how much more revenue it can bring in.

Thanks for the timing tips. I didn't know you could control when your trade ships come and go(that is, when to send them out).

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One more thing - I'd like to be able to use the Altarian medium hull design(the one used by their flagship) along with my normal Terran designs. How do you do that? This must be an extremely simple modding question.

IMO, the Terran flagship, space miners, colonizers, transports and freighters look much better than those of other races, but for the fast fighting frigates I plan to build, I want something sleek and compact looking - like that Altarian hull. Wyndstar used it for the Eclipse 'fighter' in his AAR - but he was playing as the Altarians.

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How is a game with (very)few planets not a 'real' game?

i meant a real game as opposed to what i did for my trade test, which was to use a custom map and cheat heavily to build the SBs.

One more thing - I'd like to be able to use the Altarian medium hull design(the one used by their flagship) along with my normal Terran designs. How do you do that? This must be an extremely simple modding question.

the safest and most straightforward way would be Kryo's Hull System Mod. it's stickied in the mod section. you'll get a lot more than that one hull, so if you just wanted the hull you could leave his blank hulls and the one altarian hull as jewelry, deleting all the others. that's also be how he was able to use that hull as a fighter. but i'd recommend keeping it whole; it's wonderfully useful IMO.

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Welcome PeskyFly,

One of the many things that's great about GC2 is there are lots of ways to play the game successfully. To give you a different perspective, here's how I've been playing Dread Lords lately and why (I'm still learning Dark Avatar).

Race: Yor (max population bonus, max morale bonus, federalist party)
Galaxy Size: Gigantic
Tech rate: Very fast
Stars/Planets/Anomalies: all abundant
All races enabled

Everything goes into offense. The old adage, "the best defense is a good offense" holds very true in this game. I don't use defenses other than shields and the like on my ships/fleets. I don't waste planet tiles on defense buildings. I don't build military starbases or fortify mining starbases. I don't protect planets with ships in orbit. If I need to protect a mining starbase, I park a good attack ship on top of it. Ship production is highest priority followed by economy then research. I feel defenses are too costly for the dissapointing effectiveness.

Mining starbases are critical. I always keep an eye out for galactic resources and grab them as soon as I see them. In the beginning of a game, I build surveyors at the same priority as colonizers. I put only the 7 mining upgrades on mining starbases as soon as I can.

I don't build economy starbases. I don't feel they're worth the effort when there's more beneficial stuff to do. Every now and then I might build one and add a couple starbase factories to boost production on a planet where I need it, but that's usually only 3 or 4 in a whole game.

I generally don't setup trade routes. I research the techs pretty quick for the special projects (especially the Galactic Bazaar), but I don't feel the meager income is worth the effort. If I do set up trade routes, it's for race relations and that's usually in the latter half of the game when building trade ships is not taxing at all.

Most of the time, planets get an even mix of factories, labs, markets, and one farm (if class 11 and above). Higher class planets are dedicated to ship building with all factories. Really high class planets get some labs and markets as well. A few lower class planets are dedicated to special projects with all factories. The lab and factory bonus tiles are the only ones I really care about. I put stock markets on the influence bonus tiles since stock markets have an influence bonus as well as an economy bonus. Farm bonus tiles normally don't get a farm because of the morale problems high populations cause. I put something else on those.

Except for special projects, I don't build influence buildings at all. I try to colonize whole star systems so I don't lose a lone planet to inter-solar influence. If a planet is threatened, I'll build and upgrade an influence starbase next to it. There's a neat little trick to colonize a star system cheaply off a seed planet. I'll leave that to you to figure it out.

I generally don't build morale buildings. They consume tiles and cost resources that can be better used elsewhere. I improve morale by researching entertainment techs, selecting neutral alignment, and building morale trade goods. Most important are the morale mining resources. The exception is population super planets. Those are higher class planets that can spare the tiles for lots of morale buildings and a couple three farms. However, I don't always build them.

I generally set the tax slider to keep overall morale just above the red. If I have a cash crisis, I may radically raise taxes and drop morale deep into the red for short periods (big reproduction hit). When building overall population or stocking troop transports, I may drop taxes to peg morale at 100% for the reproduction bonus. My tax slider gets a lot of play. Careful during election weeks, drop taxes so overall morale is above 50%. Otherwise, your party may lose. Losing that Federalist economy bonus is a hard hit. As far as spending, I generally set it as high as possible.

Well, lots more I could say, but I don't want to make this post any more long winded than it already is.

Have fun!

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Thanks for the timing tips. I didn't know you could control when your trade ships come and go(that is, when to send them out).

You can't control when your trade ships cycle. You can only choose when the freighter that is establishing the route first arrives at the partner planet. that sets the cycle time for the new route.

drrider

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You can't control when your trade ships cycle. You can only choose when the freighter that is establishing the route first arrives at the partner planet. that sets the cycle time for the new route.

yes i should have been more clear. you need to park your freighters next to their destination world and then keep them there until the appropriate number of turns pass (or alternately, wait until you have enough of them close enough to start sending them to the world itself). thanks drrider.

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Hey PeskyFly, check it out, the last push with the killer offense. All the ships in those lines are maxed out fleets. Every transport fleet has 11 transports and each transport has 1000 colos. Every fighter fleet has specs shown in the main control window. This is one of my favorite parts of the game.

Image Link

Click on the image for the full size view so you can read all the text.

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WOW! CraigHB, how did you manage that? The maintanence costs would be off the map. Your population would be drained, and as I saw in the screenshot, none of your planets are defended. Just WOW! Your(no pun intended) Combined Navy into one Armada!

Peskyfly, I can't match your exuberance at this debate, but let me just say, welcome to galciv2.com.

Btw, not all games go exactly as the player wants. Even on challenging.
You'll see.

For your first game, I'd recommend: Just go with the flow. Enable everything, get the utmost full experiance on that first galaxy.

After that first game, you'll see that your strategies will be changing dramatically. Not because your wrong about the game. But because its fun.

What's wrong with selling them unarmed economic starbases when I still get the same benefit?

1) Your starbases may be unarmed when you sell them...but what afterwards?

2) You dont get the same benefit if you dont own the starbase or unless the UP vote of "should starbases assist allies?" is passed. In which case you must be allied with the civ you sell to to get the same benefit.

(2) Do you often see AI races using ships built by other AI races?

Yes, all the time. In my current game, the korx sent two altarian built frigates to attack my Iconia. If your a dominant civ in the galaxy then the civ your at war with will probably get assistance from other races who dont trust you or dont like you. A good way to tell is the "we know what you're doing..." and "historic animosity" statement in the reports screen. Or, it will buy ships it cant build(rare because the AI is built to be mostly self-sufficient).

3) Your research must be balanced.

I must go now.

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Welcome PeskyFly,

One of the many things that's great about GC2 is there are lots of ways to play the game successfully. To give you a different perspective, here's how I've been playing Dread Lords lately and why (I'm still learning Dark Avatar).

Race: Yor (max population bonus, max morale bonus, federalist party)
Galaxy Size: Gigantic
Tech rate: Very fast
Stars/Planets/Anomalies: all abundant
All races enabled

Everything goes into offense. The old adage, "the best defense is a good offense" holds very true in this game. I don't use defenses other than shields and the like on my ships/fleets. I don't waste planet tiles on defense buildings. I don't build military starbases or fortify mining starbases. I don't protect planets with ships in orbit. If I need to protect a mining starbase, I park a good attack ship on top of it. Ship production is highest priority followed by economy then research. I feel defenses are too costly for the dissapointing effectiveness.

Mining starbases are critical. I always keep an eye out for galactic resources and grab them as soon as I see them. In the beginning of a game, I build surveyors at the same priority as colonizers. I put only the 7 mining upgrades on mining starbases as soon as I can.

I don't build economy starbases. I don't feel they're worth the effort when there's more beneficial stuff to do. Every now and then I might build one and add a couple starbase factories to boost production on a planet where I need it, but that's usually only 3 or 4 in a whole game.

I generally don't setup trade routes. I research the techs pretty quick for the special projects (especially the Galactic Bazaar), but I don't feel the meager income is worth the effort. If I do set up trade routes, it's for race relations and that's usually in the latter half of the game when building trade ships is not taxing at all.

Most of the time, planets get an even mix of factories, labs, markets, and one farm (if class 11 and above). Higher class planets are dedicated to ship building with all factories. Really high class planets get some labs and markets as well. A few lower class planets are dedicated to special projects with all factories. The lab and factory bonus tiles are the only ones I really care about. I put stock markets on the influence bonus tiles since stock markets have an influence bonus as well as an economy bonus. Farm bonus tiles normally don't get a farm because of the morale problems high populations cause. I put something else on those.

Except for special projects, I don't build influence buildings at all. I try to colonize whole star systems so I don't lose a lone planet to inter-solar influence. If a planet is threatened, I'll build and upgrade an influence starbase next to it. There's a neat little trick to colonize a star system cheaply off a seed planet. I'll leave that to you to figure it out.

I generally don't build morale buildings. They consume tiles and cost resources that can be better used elsewhere. I improve morale by researching entertainment techs, selecting neutral alignment, and building morale trade goods. Most important are the morale mining resources. The exception is population super planets. Those are higher class planets that can spare the tiles for lots of morale buildings and a couple three farms. However, I don't always build them.

I generally set the tax slider to keep overall morale just above the red. If I have a cash crisis, I may radically raise taxes and drop morale deep into the red for short periods (big reproduction hit). When building overall population or stocking troop transports, I may drop taxes to peg morale at 100% for the reproduction bonus. My tax slider gets a lot of play. Careful during election weeks, drop taxes so overall morale is above 50%. Otherwise, your party may lose. Losing that Federalist economy bonus is a hard hit. As far as spending, I generally set it as high as possible.

Well, lots more I could say, but I don't want to make this post any more long winded than it already is.

Have fun!

Your game settings are far from what I'd consider fun for a casual non-Metaverse game. I like my settings to be realistic to some degree: Large empty spaces between stars to simulate the emptiness of space, few stars, and hardly any inhabitable planets, since that seems more realistic. My settings would be:

Race: Terran Alliance (luck bonus, economy bonus, research bonus, universalist party)
Galaxy Size: Large(will move up towards Gigantic later on)
Tech rate: Fast
Stars: Uncommon
Planets: Uncommon
Anomalies: Occasional
Asteroids: Common
All races enabled

Everything goes into offense. The old adage, "the best defense is a good offense" holds very true in this game. I don't use defenses other than shields and the like on my ships/fleets. I don't waste planet tiles on defense buildings. I don't build military starbases or fortify mining starbases. I don't protect planets with ships in orbit. If I need to protect a mining starbase, I park a good attack ship on top of it. Ship production is highest priority followed by economy then research. I feel defenses are too costly for the dissapointing effectiveness.

Same here. My newly redesigned ships using the correct miniaturization rules are purely offensive and use sheer speed as their only defense.

Of course, on your game settings, individual planets are so worthless that you don't have to keep orbital defenses. When TA comes out with it's Immense galaxy setting, having abundant planets will only make each one more trivial and worthless.

As for the military starbases thing, I agree. They're extremely inflexible which makes them a big, expensive weakness that smart opponents can just fly past. I would do the same thing to protect soft targets: keep fast high-offense ships and early warning systems ready to intercept the enemy.

Mining starbases are critical. I always keep an eye out for galactic resources and grab them as soon as I see them. In the beginning of a game, I build surveyors at the same priority as colonizers. I put only the 7 mining upgrades on mining starbases as soon as I can.

I don't build economy starbases. I don't feel they're worth the effort when there's more beneficial stuff to do. Every now and then I might build one and add a couple starbase factories to boost production on a planet where I need it, but that's usually only 3 or 4 in a whole game.

I generally don't setup trade routes. I research the techs pretty quick for the special projects (especially the Galactic Bazaar), but I don't feel the meager income is worth the effort. If I do set up trade routes, it's for race relations and that's usually in the latter half of the game when building trade ships is not taxing at all.

I know mining bases are critical. Do starbases leave behind resources when they get destroyed, or are resources just randomly appearing anomalies?

As for trade routes and econ SBs, they're largely useless in your gigantic-abundant galaxy where you have planets littered around everywhere at your disposal, but not in my settings where each planet is a valuable asset. They're crucial with so few planets, and if the AI doesn't do it, then I get an advantage.

There's a neat little trick to colonize a star system cheaply off a seed planet. I'll leave that to you to figure it out.

Research planetary invasion and park transports ready for unsuspecting alien colonists to come by and have their new planet taken over? Sure, that would be a good alternative to researching extreme colonization early on, but I'd rather colonize normal planets the traditional way.

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the safest and most straightforward way would be Kryo's Hull System Mod. it's stickied in the mod section. you'll get a lot more than that one hull, so if you just wanted the hull you could leave his blank hulls and the one altarian hull as jewelry, deleting all the others. that's also be how he was able to use that hull as a fighter. but i'd recommend keeping it whole; it's wonderfully useful IMO.

Thanks. Can this be used if the comp with the game is not connected to the 'net? BTW, Wyndstar wasn't actually using it as a tiny/small hulled fighter. It was a medium hull which he was calling a 'fighter'. My own naming system is this:

Tiny: Fighter or Light Fighter

Small: Heavy Fighter or Strike Fighter

Medium: Frigate, Bomber, or Cruiser

Large: Battleship

Huge: Capital Ship

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Thanks. Can this be used if the comp with the game is not connected to the 'net?

well you neet to download the mod, but you can get it into your PC with a thumb drive/ CD/ whatever. i don't think the file's very large. the machine with the game doesn't neet to be connected for the mod itself, though i think that'll make patching a pain in the rear personally.

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Of course, on your game settings, individual planets are so worthless that you don't have to keep orbital defenses. When TA comes out with it's Immense galaxy setting, having abundant planets will only make each one more trivial and worthless.

"...what? we're still on? ... ... no, no, of course i wasn't talking about your homes, my wonderful citizens!"

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WOW! CraigHB, how did you manage that? The maintanence costs would be off the map. Your population would be drained, and as I saw in the screenshot, none of your planets are defended. Just WOW! Your(no pun intended) Combined Navy into one Armada!

Peskyfly, I can't match your exuberance at this debate, but let me just say, welcome to galciv2.com.

Btw, not all games go exactly as the player wants. Even on challenging.
You'll see.

For your first game, I'd recommend: Just go with the flow. Enable everything, get the utmost full experiance on that first galaxy.

After that first game, you'll see that your strategies will be changing dramatically. Not because your wrong about the game. But because its fun.

What's wrong with selling them unarmed economic starbases when I still get the same benefit?

1) Your starbases may be unarmed when you sell them...but what afterwards?

2) You dont get the same benefit if you dont own the starbase or unless the UP vote of "should starbases assist allies?" is passed. In which case you must be allied with the civ you sell to to get the same benefit.

(2) Do you often see AI races using ships built by other AI races?

Yes, all the time. In my current game, the korx sent two altarian built frigates to attack my Iconia. If your a dominant civ in the galaxy then the civ your at war with will probably get assistance from other races who dont trust you or dont like you. A good way to tell is the "we know what you're doing..." and "historic animosity" statement in the reports screen. Or, it will buy ships it cant build(rare because the AI is built to be mostly self-sufficient).

1. I don't care what happens after I sell them. They're not my property any more, but they still benefit me.

2. Really? See this thread, Reply #25. You get the same benefit provided you sell the SB to your trade partner. You get twice the benefit if you ally with them and the UP law is passed.

3. So you expect me to be trying to sell ships to someone I'm at war with?

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